dePamphilis

dePamphilis

Publication of the newly sequenced genome of the Amborella plant has shed new light on a major event in the history of life on Earth -- the origin of all major food crops and all other flowering plants. The research addresses the question of why flowers suddenly proliferated on Earth millions of years ago.

The evolution and diversification of the more than 300,000 living species of flowering plants may have been "jump started" much earlier than previously calculated, a new study indicates. According to Claude dePamphilis, a professor of biology at Penn State and the lead author of the study, which includes scientists at six universities, two major upheavals in the plant genome occurred hundreds of millions of years ago -- nearly 200 million years earlier than the events that other research groups had described. The research also indicates that these upheavals produced thousands of new genes that may have helped drive the evolutionary explosion that led to the rich diversity of present-day flowering plants. The study, which provides a wealth of new genetic data and a more precise evolutionary time scale, is expected to change the way biologists view the family trees of plants in general and flowering plants in particular. To see photos associated with this research, visit http://live.psu.edu/flickrset/72157626350083355 online. The research findings were posted on the early-online website of the journal Nature on April 10, and later will be published in the journal.

Unlocking the genetic secrets of Earth's most ancient living lineage of flowering plants -- the original source of genes for all economically important flowering crops -- is the goal of a new $7.3 million research project led by Claude W. dePamphilis, professor of biology at Penn State. The 4-year Amborella Genome Project, funded by the National Science Foundation, involves scientists at five universities who will share the complex task of discovering the genetic structure of a rare plant species named Amborella, which has been found only on the island of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean.